How to spur internal motivation in learners from a variety of educational backgrounds to engage with quantitative science

Quantitative science presents unique challenges for both public engagement and education. While it is important to have a qualitative understanding of why things happen, it is also important to couple these explanations with mathematical concepts. Unfortunately, for many learners, this can feel like an insurmountable hurdle. To address this, physics education adopts a variety of levels including qualitative-based, algebra-based, and calculus based. While assuming these starting backgrounds provides a foundation for formal curriculum, it can break down in public engagement efforts where the learning background of the target audience is either unknown or assumed to be low. Presented here is a discussion of how experiences with one-on-one math and science tutoring for middle and high school students provide insights into recognizing where people are at and building confidence to tackle more advanced concepts. By helping learners understand the big picture of the abstract concepts they have learned in math and specific areas where these skills come up later as applied to science and engineering, we can foster internal motivation. Internal motivation is key for learners to spend the time they need to engage with these concepts fully. Finally, the audience should keep in mind that the discussion and conclusions presented are based on anecdotal evidence. Future work would involve a formal research study to fully assess the impact of this methodology.